Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
- Caleb Lohner, a former Utah basketball player, was drafted by the Broncos.
- Selected in the seventh round, Lohner's football experience is limited but promising.
- Coach Sean Payton sees potential, comparing Lohner's transition to Jimmy Graham's.
DENVER — It was an improbable pick Saturday afternoon.
Caleb Lohner wasn't like most — probably all? — of the other 256 players selected in this year's NFL draft. He hadn't spent years perfecting his game, hoping someday to get a shot with a team in one of the seven rounds of the draft.
Instead, his chance at an NFL opportunity (especially as a drafted player) was a long shot — at best.
In fact, the game film documenting his football experience was arguably the shortest of every other player drafted this year. Lohner appeared in 57 plays with Utah in his final collegiate season, where he recorded 54 receiving yards and four touchdowns on just four catches.
But the Denver Broncos liked what they saw, even if it was an easy review of his football experience.
The rest is history after Lohner was selected in the seventh round as the Broncos' last pick of the draft at No. 241 overall. For head coach Sean Payton, though, Lohner was worth taking a chance on that late in the draft.
"We're late in this draft, and you're rooting for some guys and you see upside — he's (6-foot-7), 245 (pounds)," Payton told media in Denver. "You can see the basketball skill set — that's easy — at a high level. And then you're looking at a small amount of playing time, and yet enough to where you're watching him.
"I think the other thing that helped was watching him at the Big 12 pro day. There's just a few plays that you see movement skills and, man, there's a lot to work with."
Payton, who saw similar upside with five-time Pro Bowl tight end Jimmy Graham in New Orleans, said he saw several characteristics from Lohner that made him an attractive pick and one that could resemble his former tight end success story.
Like Lohner, Graham played basketball for the entirety of his collegiate career at Miami until he used a graduate season to play his final season on the football team, where he managed 213 yards and five touchdowns on 17 catches.
Graham got an invite to the NFL Combine and was selected in the third round of the 2010 NFL draft before a 13-year NFL career that included five Pro Bowl appearances and a 2013 season in which he was the NFL receiving touchdown (16) leader. He finished his career with 8,545 receiving yards and 89 touchdowns.
While comparing Lohner to Graham is unfair, Payton has shown experience identifying talent at the position.
"If it turns out like the last one did, then we'd be real excited," Payton said of Lohner.
"It's kind of one of those things where the body types of tight end, it's not like they're making less of them," he added. "They may be playing volleyball, they may be playing basketball, but it's projecting. And then when you get a chance to see him play football, you know he goes through a season of putting pads on. But his movement skills and his height, weight, and his hand-eye coordination, there's a lot of developmental upside, and we're excited about that."
Lohner was a quick riser in Utah's offense in his one season with the football team — even if it was marred by offensive struggles that led to a seven-game losing streak.
Head coach Kyle Whittingham praised Lohner's ability to acclimate quickly to football during the team's fall camp, and Lohner backed it up on the field, too.
Lohner now gets the chance to prove himself at the highest level of the game, with a head coach who is familiar with helping his type of transition to the game, and a rising quarterback in Bo Nix who has made the Broncos one of the best teams in the league.
